I Have To Confess That Only Sometimes Am I With You

It occurs to me I am like a houseplant. I turn a little in my chair
to look out a different window. A rabbit has stepped out from
behind a shrub; the rabbit presents himself to me. They say poetry

is dead. Or that when a hand reaches into the frame we get the sense
of someone in the act as if on a video monitor. “It is a terrifying time
to be a cigar,” I say. “Shut up and fuck me,” she says. She keeps

a friendly look on her face. Her mouth as she spoke, so large and
pink and promiscuous. I have just very carefully cut the heartless bitch.
She is a flash of light on the water. We have definitely seen something.

It gives this poem its poise and a marketable feeling comes over us,
like limes its weight is satisfying. I’m not even saying this is a poem.
When I come upon you I grope you where the camera moves

in close into and through every bedroom. In the next room I stood
very close to a mirror — you are some kind of pathetic impostor.

Michael Naghten Shanks

Michael Naghten Shanks lives in Dublin, Ireland. In 2016 he was named one of Poetry Ireland's 'Rising Generation' poets and was shortlisted for the inaugural Listowel Writers' Week Irish Poem of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Year of the Ingénue (Eyewear, 2015) is his debut poetry pamphlet.